Amazing numbers in context
Posted by Jason Lisk on February 10, 2010
In this week's Monday Morning Quarterback, Peter King included a discussion of the Hall of Fame selections this weekend, and included a section on Floyd Little. King notes that he did not vote for Little, but at least 36 of the remaining 43 selectors did. Here is the part that caught my attention:
There's no doubt in my mind that the exhaustive work of Denver Post writer Jeff Legwold either got Little in or was a major factor in his election. The way the system works is that each candidate has his case for election presented by a member of the media from where he played. Then there's free-flowing debate about the candidate. Little's speaker was Legwold. Our bylaws prevent me from discussing freely what Legwold said in the meeting, but with permission of Hall of Fame VP Joe Horrigan, I can say that one factor in Legwold's argument was that Legwold personally viewed about 1,200 of 1,641 carries in Little's nine NFL seasons.
Though I can't tell you what Legwold said in his presentation, I can tell you I discussed this with him after the presentation and Legwold said he kept records of each carry and where Little was first contacted by a defender behind a subpar Denver offensive line. Legwold said about 30 percent of the time Little was first hit behind the line. That's an amazing number. "I saw a runner who had to struggle to get to the line of scrimmage often,'' Legwold said afterward. "He had no time to be a patient runner, because he was in a bad offense with no other options.''
It's that amazing number comment that got me. I'm guessing that the committee didn't consider how frequently all running backs are first contacted behind the line of scrimmage, because that number doesn't seem particularly amazing to me. How good is a .350 on base percentage? You have to have some context about what the average is. Is making 50% of field goals from over 50 yards good or bad? Well, we need to know what others have done.
Getting hit behind the line of scrimmage 30% of the time may have wowed the room, but if it did, it's because the voters did not understand and put into context how many runs are failures where the back is first contacted behind the line. I don't have play by play data from Little's era and I also haven't viewed over 1,000 carries of any player from that era. I can try to do a quick estimate of how amazing that number is. Before the 2007 season, Mike Tanier of Football Outsiders wrote an article breaking down the percentage of rushing plays that result in certain gains. He used the 2005, 2006, and 2000 seasons. For those three seasons, 9.1% of all runs lost yardage, 8.8% gained no yards, and 12.1% gained exactly one yard. That adds up to 30.0% of all running plays either losing yards or gaining one yard or less.
Now, that number is not a direct comparison. It just allows us to put the "first contacted behind the line 30% of the time" in some context. First, not all of those rushing plays measured in 2000, 2005 and 2006 were by running backs, though a sizeable majority were. Also, not every one yard gain resulted from first contact occuring behind the line of scrimmage, though a majority of them were. On the other hand, sometimes a running back breaks a tackle or brushes off a player "contacting" him and gains more than a yard. The average carry in the three recent seasons was about 0.1 yard higher than it was during Little's prime. Throw that all together, and my guesstimate is that Little was hit behind the line a little more frequently than the average running back. I would put an estimate of between 25% and 30% for the average running back during Little's time. Certainly, it wasn't something like 10% or 15% for all others.
These numbers were presented in a vacuum to make Little's Hall of Fame case that despite his numbers, he deserved in because he played with such bad teammates. As an aside, this makes me extremely interested to see Little's induction speech. What's he going to do? Get up and thank his offensive linemen--for being perceived as being crappy enough to get him in?
So how bad were his linemen? Well, Doug and Chase have both taken a crack at that topic, and were certainly not looking to make a case for a specific player. In Doug's first pass at looking at the top 100 career rushers, Little ranked 89th in terms of playing with pro bowlers the year they made the pro bowl. He jumped to 31st when looking at how many eventual or past pro bowlers he played with, though his pro bowlers weren't of the Munoz variety. He dropped back to 85th when looking at the total pro bowls for his linemen. Remember, though, that these are below average rankings when compared to other top running backs, not compared to all running backs.
In part two, Doug then used Approximate Value and weighted it by linemen age versus peak. Little came in at #88 on that list. A year later, Chase improved on Doug's information by not only weighting it by the linemen age, but by also weighing it by the running back's actual production peak. Little came in at #85 on Chase's list. So we can say that Floyd Little played with below average linemen relative to other top rushers. Of course, so did Walter Payton, who checks in at #91, or Gale Sayers at #88. I'm guessing that Walter Payton's presenter didn't get up and talk about how bad his linemen were throughout much of his prime. The way Little's case was presented, you would think he played with the worst line of all-time, or even the worst among the top 100. He's about as close to average as he is to the very bottom, where James Wilder really did play with linemen who were a lot less accomplished than Little's. I'm going to start breaking down Wilder's career carries. I suspect he was hit behind the line an amazing number of times, and his 3.8 career rushing average should be a lock for the Hall.
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February 10th, 2010 at 9:35 am
And this is why I think the football HoF is pretty much a joke.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:56 am
When I read the Peter King article on Monday, it made me wonder how 30% compared to other RB's. If a RB has 20 carries in a game, 30% would be 6 carries. It seems like most RB's would get hit behind the LOS 6 times in a typical game.
I also call BS on the guy claiming to have logged every Floyd Little carry.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:03 am
This is like the nonsense baseball writers who say they watched every play a given position player made on defense and, as such, are qualified to determine the quality of their play. Inherent in the argument is a tacit admission that they probably watched very little of any other player at the same position on a different team (other then when they played the team in question) and, as such, have no context on which to judge. But goddamnit they watched that guy day in and day out and if they can't believe their own eyes, what CAN they believe?
February 10th, 2010 at 11:05 am
My question is, why does it matter how bad his line was? Are we suddenly giving players credit for imaginary scenarios where they played with Hall of Famers? It doesn't make sense, because if you go down the road of "Floyd Little would have rushed for X more yards if his line didn't suck", you eventually get to all kinds of hypotheticals, like "Terry Bradshaw would have been a scrub if he hadn't played with a million Hall of Famers", or "Ken Anderson would throw for 4,000 yards and 30 TD if he played in 2009"... You start to move from not penalizing a player for something he didn't do to actually crediting him for things he never did. As far as I'm concerned, you can only be judged by what actually happened in real life. So your line sucked? Sorry, that's life. Maybe Tim Rattay is a 2-time Super Bowl MVP if the Patriots take him instead of Tom Brady, but you don't see anyone making his case for Canton. If you start crediting players for what they might have done in different circumstances, it's a slippery slope because then the rules of evidence and of logic go completely out the window.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:06 am
ESPN had an article that ranked the four major Halls of Fame and Pro Football came out on top. While making the argument that it had the best process, it couldn't explain why it seems, year after year, the wonderful process of the Pro Football HOF seems to produce the most inexplicable(and most ridiculed) RESULTS. I don't think the article even mentioned the ridiculous requirement that every class has to have a minimum number of players, almost guaranteeing that someone unworthy will get in. To me, putting Russ Grimm, Dick Lebeau, and Floyd Little on the same stage with Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith is laughable.
I don't believe he should get in, but Terrell Davis(as a Denver RB with questionable credentials) has a much better case than Floyd Little. He had some huge years, was a great playoff performer, the Broncos don't win back-to-back Super Bowls without him, and is probably the biggest factor in completely changing John Elway's legacy. Floyd Little is in because...his o-line sucked and thus was better than his mediocre numbers? Couldn't you say that about dozens, if not hundreds of players in NFL history? They're not all HOFers, are they?
February 10th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Wilder 1984 season is one of the most amazing I've ever seen for any running back: his 492 touches are still the all-time record, 35 more than the next best. He had a then record 407 rushing carries (now 3rd all-time), and he was 3rd in rushing and 3rd in receptions that season. In fact, if you had played Fantasy football then, he would have given you more fantasy points than Erick Dickerson, who that season broke the all-time rushing record. Even more amazing, as Chase says, are his offensive linemen (LT Gene Sanders, LG Steve Courson, C Steve Wilson, RG Sean Farrell and RT Ron Heller). Sanders, Courson and Wilson were each in their next-to-last season in the NFL, Farrell didn't really played like a first rounder, even than he hanged in the league for twelve seasons, and Heller was a rookie who later played with better teammates in Philadelphia and Miami.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Neil-
I think it's a very fine line. It's one thing to say that Player A and Player B have comparable base stats, but since Player A's teammates were far worse than Player B's, he probably gets the nod as being the better player. It's quite another to say that Player X had significantly worse starts than Player Y, but because Player Y's teammates were better, they're essentially equal. Unfortunately, we are seeing far more of the latter than the former, especially when it serves someone's bias and already-formed-conclusion-in-need-of-evidence.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
So what would be the best way for the Football HOF to induct its players if the current system is flawed?
February 10th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
I'm glad this was brought to light. I, too, read that in Peter King's MMQB and thought it was ridiculous. Neil Payne hits the nail on the head; are we supposed to credit players with things they haven't done? "Craig Krenzel sucked, but if he had played with the Indianapolis Colts he'd have been a 2-time MVP." I mean, give me a break. We can only judge a player on what he did, not on what he would do in our fantasy land.
I also appreciate the use of statistics without context. Getting hit at or behind the line on 30% of your carries sounds like a lot, until you realize that most runs don't go for a lot of yardage. It's the running back's JOB to make people miss and break tackles. If you don't do that, then I'm sorry but you aren't actually any good. I could throw out Joe Schmo to run into the line and gain nothing, I expect a good running back to make people miss and break some tackles.
This Hall of Fame vote took the cake for me. I'm officially done with it. Andre Reed made the final 10, ahead of Cris Carter and Tim Brown. There is no way that Andre Reed was a better receiver than Carter or Brown. I was there, and while Reed certainly was a good player, he was not up to Carter and Brown's level. The time that Reed is deemed a better receiver than Carter or Brown is the time that I stop caring.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
There have been about 1600 team-seasons in the NFL/AFL since 1922 (those early years are tough to count team-seasons with teams folding mid-season) and through 2004 (the last year that current HOF members could have played.
There are now 260 members of the HOF. That works out to .1625 HOF-caliber players(and coaches) per team-season. Which then works out to 5.2 HOF players per 32-team NFL season.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I guess there are 233 players in the HOF. Here is a chart showing: Number of HOF players active each season, number of teams in the league (NFL+AFL+AAFC) each seasons, and the number of HOFers per team.
Year HOFers Teams HOF/Team
1920 10 14 0.7
1921 11 21 0.5
1922 12 18 0.7
1923 12 21 0.6
1924 13 19 0.7
1925 15 20 0.8
1926 17 22 0.8
1927 21 12 1.8
1928 18 10 1.8
1929 16 12 1.3
1930 15 11 1.4
1931 17 10 1.7
1932 20 8 2.5
1933 20 10 2.0
1934 19 11 1.7
1935 17 9 1.9
1936 20 9 2.2
1937 20 10 2.0
1938 20 10 2.0
1939 18 10 1.8
1940 20 10 2.0
1941 20 10 2.0
1942 20 10 2.0
1943 20 10 2.0
1944 17 11 1.5
1945 17 10 1.7
1946 20 19 1.1
1947 20 18 1.1
1948 26 18 1.4
1949 31 17 1.8
1950 36 13 2.8
1951 37 12 3.1
1952 43 12 3.6
1953 45 12 3.8
1954 44 12 3.7
1955 45 12 3.8
1956 42 12 3.5
1957 47 12 3.9
1958 50 12 4.2
1959 49 12 4.1
1960 51 21 2.4
1961 57 22 2.6
1962 58 22 2.6
1963 60 22 2.7
1964 64 22 2.9
1965 64 22 2.9
1966 62 24 2.6
1967 66 25 2.6
1968 65 26 2.5
1969 69 26 2.7
1970 67 26 2.6
1971 71 26 2.7
1972 67 26 2.6
1973 63 26 2.4
1974 62 26 2.4
1975 59 26 2.3
1976 59 28 2.1
1977 57 28 2.0
1978 53 28 1.9
1979 50 28 1.8
1980 47 28 1.7
1981 50 28 1.8
1982 49 28 1.8
1983 49 28 1.8
1984 45 28 1.6
1985 44 28 1.6
1986 40 28 1.4
1987 40 28 1.4
1988 38 28 1.4
1989 38 28 1.4
1990 38 28 1.4
1991 35 28 1.3
1992 34 28 1.2
1993 32 28 1.1
1994 26 28 0.9
1995 24 30 0.8
1996 21 30 0.7
1997 20 30 0.7
1998 18 30 0.6
1999 16 31 0.5
2000 12 31 0.4
2001 8 31 0.3
2002 6 32 0.2
2003 5 32 0.2
2004 2 32 0.1
It looks like we hit a high point right before the AFL began with each team having an average of 4 HOFers on their roster. That's probably an artifact of a lot of guys being in a 12-team league in the late 50's, and then suddenly getting a lot more opportunity to play and become HOFers after expansion began.
The 1970's probably have the most normalized numbers. Expansion had leveled off. Most worthy players from the 70's are now in the HOF. During that time there were typically about 2.5 HOF players per team. That seems a little crazy to me that at any given time there are approximately 2 or 3 HOF-caliber players on EVERY NFL team. That means there are about 80 current NFL players who will one day join the HOF.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
People get more nostalgic as more time passes and begin voting with their hearts, not their minds. It's the same nonsense that fuels, "Players nowadays can't compare to players back then" thinking. If you believe, as I do, that the HoF is reserved for the very elite people in the game, then many of the inclusions and the voting process itself are deeply flawed.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I'm not going to argue that Little deserved to get voted in. But, I will nitpick a little with Jason's numbers here. You include the number of runs that gained a single yard to get up to 30%. I've seen many runs into the line where a runner was not hit behind the line of scrimmage but was held to no gain or only gained a yard. So, to include those three categories doesn't seem to be a legitimate answer to King's statement. In the absence of any real data on how often it is typical to be hit behind the line, I can't give much credence to the combined 20.9% which went for 0 or 1 yards being included as a "typical" number of how often runners get hit behind the line of scrimmage.
That's not to say that I think King's statement if overly compelling either. I think the questions raised as to context are legitimate. The problem is that I don't think these numbers provide enough context to be meaningful. IMO, these numbers and their own context show that it's entirely possible that runners are hit behind the line only about 15% of the time. Of course, they don't include those instances where a runner breaks a tackle that would have been a loss and runs for more than 1 yard. I guess what I'm saying is that the data is just too incomplete.
February 11th, 2010 at 6:43 am
Wow, when did informed football fans start objecting to the idea of putting stats in context? Not picking on Jason here, who specifically WAS trying to put a number into context. But the comments implying that this discredits the entire Hall of Fame? Get real.
Neil, I understand your point, but you go much too far. If we're going to evaluate players fairly, we have to put their accomplishments in context. Your comment implies that we're trying to figure out how good a player's statistics were rather than using the stats as a tool to help discover how good the player was. Looking at things like the quality of his teammates is an essential part of the latter. You asked, I hope in jest, "why does it matter how bad his line was?" If we accept the basic premise that good offensive linemen help their teams (a no-brainer), it logically follows that a running back with good blockers is likely to achieve more than one with poor blockers. Surely you don't really believe that the line is unimportant to a team.
Football is not like baseball, where almost everything can be quantified. Football is a team game in which even exceptional players cannot succeed without support. On every play, they rely on their teammates. A good hitter on a bad team will still have good averages. A good RB on a bad team probably will not. Therefore, an exclusively statistical analysis would be irresponsible, a horrible way of evaluating players. We shouldn't reward players just for being drafted by good teams, or punish them for playing on poor ones. This isn't about crediting players for what they might have done in different circumstances, it's putting what they really did do into context, and it is critical to a fair evaluation of any player.
I recognize that your Tim Rattay analogy was deliberate hyperbole, but it doesn't work as a comparison. Rattay didn't do anything in his career; Little made 5 Pro Bowls (incl. AFL All-Star Games). That's more than Terry Bradshaw or Ken Anderson.
As far as I'm concerned, you can only be judged by what actually happened in real life. So your line sucked? Sorry, that's life.
When we take Little's blockers into account, that is "what actually happened in real life." He didn't have trouble finding holes in anyone's imagination. Jason even provided some stats that make an attempt to quantify this. Any responsible analysis of Little's career has to, on some level, account for the situation he was in, and no one questions that Little played with a sub-par team. During his prime, the Broncos finished .500 only once. Everyone who watched football in the early 70s agreed that Little did a heroic job behind a bad line. In 2002, Dr. Z named Little one of the 30 best RBs he ever saw.
Even if you go strictly by statistics, compare Little to his contemporaries. He's obviously behind O.J. Simpson, Gale Sayers, and Leroy Kelly, but his numbers compare favorably to those of Larry Brown and Larry Csonka. Brown, Csonka, and Kelly all played on good teams. Csonka had arguably the best blockers of any RB in history; that line made stars of Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris, too. Little fits in just fine with this group of RBs, all of whom are HOF-caliber.
The argument isn't that Little played with a crappy line. It's that Little played well and put up good numbers despite having a crappy line. Comparing Little to James Wilder is absurd. Wilder had 1 great season, 2 good ones, and a bunch of compiling. Little had 3 great seasons, 3 good ones, and almost no compiling. They have very similar career numbers, but Wilder (1) played more seasons, (2) played 16-game seasons, (3) didn't return kicks, and (4) didn't play in the most depressed statistical era for RBs since before Jim Brown. Little's prime coincided almost exactly with one of the worst periods in history for RBs, statistically.
Little is undoubtedly in the bottom portion of HOF RBs, and I wouldn't be upset if his nomination had fallen short. But is he the worst RB in Hall? No. A disgrace to Canton? Far from it. Little had probably his best statistical season in 1973, at age 31. No RB in history really had his best season after turning 30. But the Broncos were starting to suck a little less by that time (they had the first winning record in franchise history, and even made the Super Bowl four years later). If Little, at 31, could outplay Franco Harris, John Riggins, Csonka, and Brown, all of whom were younger, how good must he have been at 27? It's tough to say, because the Broncos were always playing catch-up, and Little only got 146 carries. I find it much more plausible that Little was a great back limited by his circumstances in his mid-20s than I do that he had his best season at 31, just two years before he retired.
Just for clarification, I'm not trying to single Neil out. I had a couple specific comments and questions for him at the beginning, but the bulk of this is not directed at any one person.
February 11th, 2010 at 7:53 am
Larry, while I agree that not all 0 or 1 yard runs resulted from the back being originally contacted behind the line, do you think that they are contacted behind the line on only 25% of them? That seems implausible to me. That's what it would have to be in order for 15% of runs to be the right number. And that doesn't include runs where there was contact behind the line and the back broke it for a larger gain. I'm including those in my quick 25-30% estimate.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Brad O., excellent points. I fall more on your side of that argument. I recently wrote the Vinny Testaverde piece, which on some sites that linked here was taken as me arguing he SHOULD be in the Hall. I wasn't actually taking that position, but I do think that if we can reliable measure actual facts to take out teammate contribution to numbers, then that can show a player to be better than his raw numbers, just like we can account for schedule, weather, etc. I don't think we are there yet. In Little's case, he clearly played with lesser teammates than most Hall of Famers. The question, still unanswered though, but used blindly by the committee without context, is how much lesser? and how much did that impact the raw numbers? Little got a pass it seems, where the teammates excused everything. As we can see, Payton played with crappy offensive teammates in the 70's and early 80's, when he was in his prime, and put up outstanding numbers.
In baseball, we can separate out teammate contribution better. Zack Greinke can win the Cy Young deservedly despite playing with crappy teammates. If we get better measures that isolate teammate contribution, then I think we can make the same judgments of football players, even if it is post career.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:02 am
I would counter by saying that I don't believe the Hall of Fame should be about trying to determine how "good" a player was at all, in terms of raw talent/playing ability -- instead, it should be about determining how accomplished he was statistically (defining "statistically" as broadly as you want -- maybe it includes his accomplishments, the team's accomplishments, etc.). Do you see the distinction? The former is basically attempting to find Little's "true talent level" in relation to that of every other running back in the history of football (not just the NFL, either, but all football at all levels), which is unquestionably impossible; the latter concedes that inherent impossibility and acknowledges that the only way to really approach the problem is to judge players on what they actually accomplished in the context they were given.
An example I liked to use for much of past college football season was Oklahoma, who lost a number of games but still had a dominant point differential and was one of the top teams in the country by "predictive" power rankings... What you're saying is that a team like 5-loss Oklahoma, unlucky in close games, winners of many blowouts, should be in the national title hunt over teams with 3 or 4 fewer losses because their "true talent" is probably higher going forward. What I'm saying is that for the purposes of the national title, Oklahoma should be judged on their actual accomplishments, and they lost 5 games. It doesn't matter how, or why, it just matters that they lost those games and other teams didn't.
The same goes for Floyd Little -- maybe he was better than the numbers indicate, maybe not. But the Hall of Fame shouldn't be about "true talent level", it should be about the statistical resume you put up over the course of your career. You are what the stats say you were; otherwise, anyone could build a case on the basis of "true talent", which can't be measured and consequently can neither be proven or disproven.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Neil-
I'm with you on this. We do need to put stats in context and attempt to understand the environment in which they occurred. Yet, we can only go on the body of work as it is, which includes this context, but cannot include hypotheticals. Neil's analogy to college football is one I've used before, and I think part of the problem comes because their is no firm definition for admission to the Football HoF (or any HoF, for that matter). If we're looking at talent level, then Bo Jackson should probably be in. Sure, he didn't do much in the league, but not because the talent wasn't there. Was Joe Namath really a better football player than Bo Jackson? Throw in the ridiculous voting process for the Football HoF (minimum and maximum number of guys in; campaigning by local sportswriters; etc.) and it is clear that the HoF is not that concerned with actually inducting the elite individuals in the sport.
Also, and keeping in mind that I do support the idea of putting numbers in context, how do we know for sure that a guy like Little's numbers were depressed because of his teammates? I'm not fully versed in how linemen are evaluated, but isn't it possible that Little's limited skill set made them look worse? I think that is one of the hardest things about drawing any hard conclusions on such data in football (as opposed to baseball, where you can evaluate guys individually) and the chicken/egg debate in these situations is worth noting.
February 11th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Was Joe Namath really a better football player than Bo Jackson?
Yes.
Jackson was a great runner but was not a good pass receiver or blocker. I don't remember him being used as a lead blocker nor do I remember him as being a good back to help pick up blitzing defenders. I remember him as a one trick pony. Of course, that one trick was very special.
Namath was an excellent passer and obviously played a more important position. Before Namath's knee were shredded he was a QB who did have the ability to run for yardage. Of course, that was mostly in his Alabama days.
Namath was one of the most talented quarterbacks to ever play the game. I guess it depends on how one defines talent, but I would say that Namath was one of the top five most talented quarterbacks in history.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:19 am
...And that's why we need to focus on statistics to judge players.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Brad, FWIW - John Riggins had his best season at age 34. Tiki Barber had his best season at age 30.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Terrell Davis is more deserving of the HOF than Little is period. The guy was the driving force to 2 Super Bowl Championships. Also, the guy totalled at least 100 yards (rusing and receiving) in every playoff game he was in.
I also agree with Chris that Andre Reed should not have been among the 10 finalist over Tim Brown and Chris Carter.
The Football Hall of Fame has become a complete joke.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I want to be clear that I'm not advocating judging players on opinion without statistics. I have an opinion that Bo Jackson was one of the most talented running backs I saw with my 14 year old eyes. I do not have statistics to back that claim compared to the great backs in the game.
Neil says, "You are what the stats say you were". Okay, you are who which stats say you were? which set of data? My position is that if you can develop better statistics that isolate teammate contribution or account for teammates, and they show that a player was better than other stats (like passing yards or rushing yards), then you can then make determinations on players, even after their careers are done.
Did Bill Groman have one of the best receiving seasons in the history of football in 1960? It depends on which stats say what he was. His yards per game ranks 15th all time. It was also the first year of the AFL, and Groman, along with over half the starters that year, would be out of football within the next three years. Those are also facts, or data.
Was John Brodie as good as Jurgensen? Depends on which stats you use to say who they were. raw YPA, you would say Jurgensen. It's also a fact that the NFL East was much easier than the West during the 60's, and Jurgensen's YPA was 0.8 lower against the West than the East, while Brodie's was 0.5 higher against the East than West. Those are also stats. Can I use them to show that the two men were similar in who they were? Or must I conclude that Jurgensen should be in the Hall and Brodie not because the actual numbers on the field were in Jurgensen's favor, because he played 80% of his games against the East while Brodie played 80% against the West?
Can I adjust Jim Rice's numbers based on playing in Fenway Park to say what he was? Can I show the splits home and away?
Can we use OPS to determine what a baseball player was? Isn't there some hypothetical built in to that statistic?
What about efficiency stats in basketball? When we say that a basketball player who took 5 shots is better than one who took 20, because the first got rebounds and steals, are we engaging at some level in hypotheticals about the value of two different types of players?
Or is it okay to use these as stats, like OPS or the various NBA efficiency measures, to evaluate what a player was because they become acceptable?
We probably agree more than we are letting on in this fun little debate.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Yes, of course we agree more than we're letting on. I think the main thing here is the distinction between value and ability:
http://gosu02.tripod.com/id11.html
Ability is what we're looking for when we cut the data with all of the splits and adjustments you mention -- we're trying to use the stats to determine how "good" a player is/was by removing all of the contextual influences that cause his raw numbers not to be a good indicator of his true talent. In that sense, it's completely appropriate to boost Little for performing admirably behind a poor line, or on a poor team, just like you would use park factors to adjust Jim Rice's stats or an SOS adjustment for a college football team's winning %. These are all measures of ability.
However, value is a radically different concept... Instead of asking "how good is/was a player?", you ask what his literal contribution was to winning games or championships. A value metric will only make adjustments to account for differing conditions that make certain statistics more valuable than others -- for instance, 3000 passing yards was far more valuable in terms of winning in the 1970s than it is today. However, you don't account for the fact that a player's line was poor and he would have had better stats elsewhere. This is what I meant when I said you are who your stats say you are; if you rushed for a certain amount of yardage on a team that won a certain number of games, then as far as value is concerned, that's who you are. Context is embraced when we speak of value -- an identically-talented player on a team that uses him more effectively (whether through coaching, better teammates, etc.) is more valuable, despite equal ability.
So in the end it comes down to a question of whether you think the Hall of Fame should reward ability or value. IMO, the only logical choice is value, because literal ability is not quantifiable; the most you can do is try to glean bits and pieces of literal ability from amongst the value aspect of a player's stats. If you were running a stats-free league, then you'd have no choice but to induct players on the basis of context-free ability, but it would also be totally subjective. If you rely on value, you do have to embrace context, but you at least have some kind of factual framework within which you can work.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Jason, No, I don't think it's as low as 25% of runs with gains of 0 or 1 yard. I have no idea, which is really my only point. With so many parts of these numbers really being guesstimates, how can you say this disproves or de-legitimizes Kings numbers?
February 11th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Jason, I answered your question before reading number 16. I think your answer at number 16 is the best questioning of King's statement. Since there are no stats on whether a runner is hit behind the line, I guess you used the best you had to hand.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
JWL-
Are you we thinking of the same Joe Namath? He of the 173/220 TD/INT ratio? Of the 62-63-4 record as a starter? Of the career completion percentage of 50.1%? Of the career 65.5 passer rating? And while perhaps Namath would have had a better career despite his injury, the fact is the injury happened, his career numbers were pretty poor, and by no legitimate statistical measure can you say he was a legit HoF. Take away the story of Super Bowl III and his personality and it wouldn't even be up for discussion. And that is the problem with the HoF. (Note: This argument is not unique to the Football HoF, as I think they are all flawed, but I think the Football HoF is probably the most flawed.)
February 11th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
RE: 8
If nobody wants to venture to answer this question, then I will. What you do is establish benchmarks for each position based on the statistical information of current Hall of Famers. You throw out the highs and the lows and you establish an average. If a player doesn’t meet these averages (or something close to it- you have to tweak the criteria), then their candidacy becomes questionable. When you establish averages, you only improve on the overall quality of the system – now and in the future. The answer is BENCHMARKS, the remaining question is how do you establish the benchmarks?
I am a major proponent of All – Pro status, but not first team over second. That evaluation is questionable and too subjective. The value of AP selection is not the same for every position. The AP status for the “skilled positions” (I wish you would change the label for these positions to High Profile Positions- HPP, because every position in football is a skilled position) is just a part of the whole when you also have to take in consideration the “black ink” of the player’s career. I also put more value to players NEA AP selection as oppose to a players “press poll” selections. NEA is base on the evaluation of players as oppose to writers. The information to create the methodology is currently available, it just a matter of putting the pieces together.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
If that particular stat (30%) really sold the voters, it's sad that he guys placing people on the HoF are "followers" to that extent (not asking Q, analyzing, putting into context, etc)
I read that FO article and it's very true regarding long carries boosting average. Last summer, for 08, I broke down every carry (via NFL.com's game logs) of Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, DeAngelo Williams, Brandon Jacobs, and Maurice Jones-Drew. All had a median rush of 3 yards, and all had a similar % of carries that went for less than 4 yards (from 51.2 to 58.4%, Jacobs and Turner respectively).
February 11th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
I like the term HPP (High Profile Position) - I am going to try to incorporate it into my language.
February 11th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
To be fair, this isn't quite the fault of the HoF - Really, unrealistic or no, I'd want my HoF electors to have watched every career play of at least the finalists via tape. I wouldn't suggest Floyd Little deserves it, but he would have kept coming up for a HoF nomination by the senior committee until he did break the ice, and eventually he would have been a nice addition.
February 11th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
@Jason: Thanks. The Testaverde piece was very interesting, and I'm glad you're tring to give the King/Legwold number some context. I don't think anyone believes Floyd Little was as good as Walter Payton, who is widely regarded as the best RB this side of Jim Brown. He probably was as good as some of the other RBs in Canton.
@Neil: Like you and Jason, I suspect we agree on more than we've let on. Jason made a lot of the same points I was going to. Football statistics just aren't very advanced right now. This is like trying to judge baseball players on nothing but batting average, HR, and RBI. It's inaccurate. It's unfair. If I'm understanding your argument correctly, you're saying luck should play a role in who goes to the Hall of Fame. A guy gets drafted by the wrong team and unless he's Barry Sanders, nothing else he does in his career matters. I'm not saying we should place ability over value. I'm saying we don't know how to judge value.
I don't know how you feel about Win Shares. Some people swear by them, others have issues with the system. But it's an attempt to quantify a player's value into a number that translates directly to how many games he helped his team win. Someone on a bad team can still help his team win a lot of games, can have great value to that team. Football doesn't have anything like that. We're still looking at the traditional Triple Crown stats, and if we don't include some non-quantifiable material, we're going to make ridiculous mistakes. I'm interested in how you think we should evaluate positions other than QB, RB, and WR.
The remarkable thing is, Jason has provided data that shows Little didn't have very good blockers. Disregarding that would be like ignoring park effects in baseball: it's the situation in which someone played. To stretch the baseball analogy, Little was batting in the Astrodome. We know that batting in Houston limited a player's statistics, just like we know that Little had sub-par blockers. But "park effects" in football haven't been quantified to a level that would satisfy most of us. I'm not saying that hitting .280 in Houston is like batting .320 in Colorado, or .300 anywhere else. I'm just saying that Little hit .280, and he did it in Houston. Batting .280 in that situation is a greater accomplishment, undeniably, than doing the same thing at Coors Field in the late 90s.
The problem is that stats are not infallible. That's true even in baseball, which is much more statistically sophisticated than football. Even before OPS+ and Park Effects and Win Shares, you can isolate a player's production. That's not possible in football. Your method, as I understand it, sounds too much like evaluating teams rather than individuals. But even in baseball, the stats aren't perfect. Bill James must have written a million times that the stats alone are not enough. Doug Drinen, who founded this site, always recognized the limitations of statistics. There are things statistics can't measure -- in football, a lot of things -- and disregarding all subjective means of player evaluation is irresponsible, a deeply flawed way of analyzing careers. Surely you aren't suggesting that we can't learn anything about a player by watching him?
There are some players whose statistics alone make it obvious that they are or are not worthy of Hall of Fame consideration. Little is not one of those players: he's a borderline case. And in that situation, I think we have an obligation to at least consider all available resources for evaluating the player, including subjective ones. If you watch football, you can learn things about a player that can't be picked up off a stat sheet; in other cases, watching him may point you in the direction of what you should look for in the stats. An exclusively objective analysis is, again, irresponsible.
I agree that we shouldn't be looking at raw talent or trying to assess potential. I'm just saying you consider the situation in which real accomplishments occurred. If you examine RB stats through history, Floyd Little does have borderline HOF numbers. His stats are very comparable to those of contemporaries Larry Csonka and Larry Brown. Little was a 5-time Pro Bowler. This guy would have a case for Canton if he played on the '72 Dolphins or '95 Cowboys. But he didn't. He played on absolutely terrible Bronco teams that limited both his number of carries (he was 28 when he had his first 200-carry season) and the running lanes available. You compared Little to Oklahoma, but this guy definitely didn't lose 5 games.
@Richie: I knew someone was going to bring Riggins up. He, like Little, had his best statistical season after turning 30. He played with one of the best lines in history, and for a legendary offense that consistently put him in scoring position. And yet, his stats that season aren't a whole lot better than they were with the Jets in 1972 or 1975. Do you really believe Riggins was a better player at age 34 than he was at 23 or 26? Was Riggins really a better player in '83, or did he just have 150 more carries because he played on the best team in the league instead of one of the worst? This is the same thing I'm saying with Little. He had his best numbers in '73, but it probably wasn't the year he actually played his best football. We could make similar arguments about Curtis Martin's 2004 season.
re: Tiki, I misphrased myself earlier. When I wrote "after turning 30", I meant "past 30 years old", 31+. I agree that Tiki's best season was 2005. Tony Canadeo, Tom Matte, and Charlie Garner were also 30 when they had probably their best years.
February 11th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
I've been watching and following football closely for 19 of my 25 years. I have talked, read, written, watched, listened to, and digested way too much football information. With anything I read, wrote, played, or anyone I talked to, I never heard anything substantial about Floyd Little until a couple years ago.
Now I'll throw in the caveat that as a Packer fan in Packer country, the only Broncos discussion generally revolved around *%!$&# John Elway and bleepin' Terrell Davis in Super Bowl XXXII. And obviously I wasn't alive when Little played.
That being said I at least had an understanding of players like Ron Johnson or John David Crow. It just seems that if a person can't get elected during normal eligibility and a football fan knows nothing of a player's impact 30 years later, it's a bit odd for them to be in the HoF.
February 11th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Jiffy, I don't think it's fair to declare a player as not HOF-worthy simply because he wasn't enshrined during his initial eligibility. I'm not sure if the procedure was different, but it looks like there were quite a few inductions of fewer than 5 players during the 1970s and 1980s. So there probably was room to induct Floyd Little. But if they mistakenly left him out back then, that's what the senior committee is for - to fix previous injustices.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
re: BSK, post #27
I was responding to your assertion that Bo Jackson had more football talent than Joe Namath. I didn't mention any stats or Pro Bowl numbers or accomplishments in pro football.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
JWL-
That was exactly the problem with your post. You asserted that Namath was one of the 5 most talented QBs to play the game, but gave no evidence for that. Talent is nearly impossible to measure objectively. If we are going to put players in on "talent", then we might as well just pick names out of a hat. Judging "talent" is subjective and leads to too many coulda-shoulda-woulda conversations. Instead, let's evaluate what actually happened on the field. Now, what happened on the field obviously went better for Namath than Jackson, but neither really did anything particularly exceptional when it's all said and done with. My point was that there are supremely talented players who, for one reason or another, don't live up to that talent (or the perception of their talent). Unfortunately, we cannot give them credit for what they did not actually accomplish. Namath gets no bonus points for what might have been had he not hurt his leg before he even got to the NFL, just like Jackson gets no bonus points for what might have been. To say that Namath was a top 5 QB and then say that my statistical demonstration of exactly why he wasn't is off the mark is laughable at best.
February 11th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Please read what I wrote.
I did not comment on stats in this blog entry.
You wrote that Jackson was more talented and was a better football player than Namath. I disagreed with that.
February 11th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
I was sloppy in how I worded the question, but what I meant was that, at their absolute bests as a pro football player, achieving their max potential based on their talent level, who would be the better player? I'd say Jackson and would bet most scouts would agree.
The fact is, you still haven't backed up your claim with anything of any worth. What made Namath a better football player? What made him a top 5 most talented QB ever? You said he was an "excellent passer". I demonstrated that all of these facts were wrong WITH STATS, the most objective way we have of verifying such claims. That left your claim pretty baseless. So, you can defend it, or just keep repeating it and hope it becomes true.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:02 am
Ok, now I'm officially upset. If we accept the logic that got Floyd Little in - and on the face of it I don't think we should - Don Coryell should be in 10 years ago because he was held back by coaching under a tightwad owner who traded away some of his best players when they had the temerity to ask for a new contract.
How about Bill Walsh's credentials? He was coaching in the opposite situation to Coryell where the owners (in pre salary cap times) could and did afford to keep two HOF calibre QBs on the roster at the same time - does that detract from his HOF credentials?
Now before I get flamed by the heat of a million suns I DO believe Walsh should be in, but I also believe that Coryell has more right to be in the HOF than Fouts and the fact that he isn't shows a level of staggering stupidity on the part of a significant portion of HOF voters - not that that is a newsworthy statement...
February 12th, 2010 at 4:42 am
About five minutes after I signed off and went to bed, I wish I hadn't added one more thing to post 37.
I understood what BSK was getting at with his post, but thought Joe Namath was a poor example. He is a prototype. Namath, Dan Marino, and John Elway are arguably the three most gifted naturally talented quarterbacks. Is that a subjective comment? Yeah, but look at the film.
If BSK had used Y.A. Tittle or Len Dawson instead of Namath, I would have never commented in this blog entry.
February 12th, 2010 at 4:43 am
re: 38
You want it? You got it. I'll find the Bill Walsh quotes. I won't be able to until at least 12 hours, though.
February 12th, 2010 at 7:10 am
JWL-
You still haven't given any data for stating Namath is as good as you say he is. If you read the next post on the blog, you'll see an objective, articulate argument for his case as a HoF. I don't agree with it, but at least there is data I can analyze and respond to. For you to say "look at the tape" is meaningless. I'm sure you can find 100 passes where Namath looked like a god and I can find 100 where he looked like a dud. You have your head stuck in the ground and refuse to look at objective measures. It seems as if you are scared of stats and insist on trusting your lying eyes.
February 12th, 2010 at 7:14 am
JWL-
And, even if we accept your argument that he was one of the top 3 "most gifted naturally talented quarterbacks"... who cares? If being a naturally gifted talent is all it takes to get in the HoF, why don't we just induct guys at the combine? The fact is, you have to DO something with the talent. We have seen plenty of guys piss away their talent or otherwise not live up to their talent level. It can be a matter of work ethic, circumstance, injury, luck, who knows. But you still seem to want to give credit to Namath for things he never did. Would you like to see Tim Thomas inducted into the NBA HoF because of his "natural talent"? Should we give Randy Moss a pass on his Oakland days and just add 15 TDs to his career totals because his talent level in those seasons didn't match his production?
February 12th, 2010 at 8:13 am
I think you're misunderstanding why park effects are used in a value metric, though. Park effects aren't saying "here's what he would have done at a neutral park" (that's an ability question), they're asking "how much more valuable was every run in a low-RPG environment than in a high-RPG one?" So the runs in Coors are less valuable because they're not as scarce -- 1 run "buys" you fewer wins in Coors than it does elsewhere.
I suppose the football equivalent for an offensive player would be the PPG environment in which he played, since (all else being equal) any single yard would be more likely to be the difference in a low-scoring game than a high-scoring one. So I will grant you that Little's offensive line being bad likely depressed scoring, which did in fact make Little's rushing yards more valuable (the extent to which I'm not sure, of course).
However, there's a difference in philosophy here that's important: in a value metric we don't boost Little for poor line play because he "would have" had more yards with a better line, we boost him because yards were valued differently in his environment than in the league-average one. Do you see the distinction? It's a very important one, because the former is creating imaginary scenarios, while the latter is still taking what actually happened and simply asking how much value should be placed on each statistic, based on their relationship with wins.
February 12th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
It just seems that if a person can't get elected during normal eligibility and a football fan knows nothing of a player's impact 30 years later, it's a bit odd for them to be in the HoF.
Exactly.
The justification for Floyd Little's induction into the HOF is one of the most mystifying things I've witnessed in my years following sports. And that's without mentioning the guys he jumped over this year.
February 12th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Neil,
...And that's why we need to focus on statistics to judge players.
Aside from QB/RB/WR/TE, we don't have much in the way of statistics to use. We all "know" that Anthony Munoz was an all-time great tackle, but we can't necessarily explain it.
Park effects aren't saying "here's what he would have done at a neutral park" (that's an ability question), they're asking "how much more valuable was every run in a low-RPG environment than in a high-RPG one?"
They're saying both. We know that a 20 HR season in the Astrodome was more than half as good (valuable, too) than a 40 HR season at Coors Field.
And I think that ability enters into the conversation - Lynn Swann belongs in the Hall because of how he caught passes, not his numbers. Players who exhibited tremendous talent in less-than-ideal circumstances (Ernie Stautner?) deserve induction as much as the guys who were valuable to championship teams.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
And, even if we accept your argument that he was one of the top 3 "most gifted naturally talented quarterbacks"... who cares? If being a naturally gifted talent is all it takes to get in the HoF, why don't we just induct guys at the combine? The fact is, you have to DO something with the talent. We have seen plenty of guys piss away their talent or otherwise not live up to their talent level. It can be a matter of work ethic, circumstance, injury, luck, who knows. But you still seem to want to give credit to Namath for things he never did. Would you like to see Tim Thomas inducted into the NBA HoF because of his "natural talent"? Should we give Randy Moss a pass on his Oakland days and just add 15 TDs to his career totals because his talent level in those seasons didn't match his production?
Sheesh. Way to misread and grossly misinterpret my comment.
Namath was one of the most talented QBs of all-time. I thought that was a universal feeling amongst knowledgable football fans.
I will also note that Jeff George and Ryan Leaf had a lot of talent.
Talent- n. a superior, apparently natural ability or power
Do not put words in my mouth.
Not once did I write that Namath deserved Hall induction based on his talent.
It's simple.
I understood your point in post #18. The problem was that you mentioned Joe Namath in your comparison to Bo Jackson. I did not find that comparison a good one. A less naturally talented QB, such as Y.A. Tittle or Len Dawson or Bobby Layne should have been mentioned instead.
And finally, excuse me, but where exactly did I give Namath credit for things he never did?
AYFKM with post 43?
February 12th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
The "yes" in post 19 should not have been italicized. I did an even bigger botch job with the HTML in post 47.
Oh well.
February 13th, 2010 at 12:03 am
I think people misunderstand the point of a HoF. The Namath discussion sells it for me. Floyd Little may not be the best RB in history but neither was Namath the best QB. But, we remember Namath for helping legitimize the merger by winning SB III. Little may not be as famous as Namath but plenty of people still remember him. It isn't about stats or talent but fame.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:29 am
JWL-
I was talking about the use of "talent analysis" in HoF voting and how I thought it was nonsensical. You went off on a rant about how my comparison between Jackson and Namath was unfair. If that was really your only point, then you overblew a minor quibble and otherwise had no input to the conversation. I assumed you were actually engaging my larger point, which was that "talent" shouldn't play a role in HoF voting, because if it did, players like Jackson should be voted in. If you think Namath was more talented than Jackson, fine, more power to you. But that is meaningless to the general conversation being had here, which is how HoF voters are determined. Your rant was essentially a non-sequitor, a tangential rant that I assumed was relevant to the conversation and which I engaged as such. Unfortunately, it was not, and I shouldn't even have responded in the first place.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Neil,
I think you took my Park Effects comparison a bit too literally. I specifically said I was "stretch[ing] the baseball analogy", and my point was simply that disregarding the quality of blockers is tantamount to ignoring the environment in which the stats were produced.
Like Jerry, I continue to wonder how you propose we evaluate the non-glamour positions. Or are those positions unimportant? Why does it matter how bad the line is, right?
February 13th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
The Peter King piece left more Q's than A's for me. First of all, I don't know how old Jeff Legwold is and whether he was physically around during Floyd Little's playing days, but he supposedly has charts of 73% of Little's carries and declares that 30% of the time he was hit in the backfield before reaching the line of scrimmage.
Does that mean that during the first 27% of Little's carries - perhaps his first three seasons in the league - Mr. Legwold was watching and developing a theory that Little had unusual struggles just to get to the line of scrimmage and then started the charting crusade to prove a point? If so, what is his point, specifically? Did he establish a benchmark? (Highly unlikely as the time and resources needed to chart that many carries for so many RBs seems practically impossible). Without establishing a benchmark and tallying other players how can he make a valid comparison with other RBs - perhaps Hall of Famers - and make any assertion that Little's handicap was so great that it behooves the Hall to vote him in? Or does he have other players that he charted to make a comparison to Little?
Does the 1200 carry figure mean that Legwold only had access to a portion of the game films of Little and he conducted his charting well after the games were being played? If so, what other players did he chart that would show Little being so handicapped with that Denver O-line?
One thing I know for sure. Most, if not all, of the AFL and AFC games during Little's career that aired on NBC have been literally wiped out, making after-the-fact viewing impossible using videotape. So either Legwold had access to game films or he charted while the games were going on live and captured 73% of those carries. One problem with charting games live without the facilities of rewinding or replaying is that mistakes happen and attention to detail is sometimes very difficult when your window of opportunity comes and goes.
As I thought about the notion of charting hits behind the line of scrimmage Walter Payton came to mind. If I had to do a simple player-to-player comparison I would use Walter as one RB, for starters. But I don't have any game tapes of Walter's first two years in the league, when his line might have been at its worst.
Having followed football closely since the preseason of 1968 I would have to say Payton was one stellar RB who had particular difficulties getting out of his backfield - more than any other RB I can recall who posted decent numbers. While I can't prove it with numbers yet, at least I have a theory going.
Lastly, I was a put off some by the Denver Post's efforts to get Floyd Little into the Hall as I thought it was a bit over-the-top compared to other pitches made that were publicly known. I am all for inclusion for those who deserve it, but to emphasize how important Little was to Denver first and not so much the league or the game itself was somewhat shallow.
I am of the opinion that IMPACT is what determines a player's worthiness for the Hall. Not talent, but impact. I heard the word VALUE being used and I like that term as far as evaluating a player's contributions to his team, but above and beyond that I look to a player's impact on how well his team did as a result of that player's best efforts: did his team reach higher heights like the playoffs, a Super Bowl, or a world championship due to his impact? In other words, what humps did that player help his team climb over?
Maybe impact and value are interchangeable terms, but in looking at Little's candidacy I would look beyond what impact he made for Denver as a franchise and determine what impact he had on Denver winning football games, what impact did he have on the game itself, and to the history (storytelling) of the league.
February 14th, 2010 at 7:48 am
Patrick w. wrote-
Lastly, I was a put off some by the Denver Post's efforts to get Floyd Little into the Hall as I thought it was a bit over-the-top compared to other pitches made that were publicly known. I am all for inclusion for those who deserve it, but to emphasize how important Little was to Denver first and not so much the league or the game itself was somewhat shallow.
This is probably the best statement against Little's induction than anything else I have read. The whole Jackson vs Namath debate needs to end and focus on should Little have been inducted or not. Everyone understands that the poor offensive line story is a bunch of garbage. The Denver Post's reporter's argument was specious at best, insulting at worst.
But, given the fact that Little's stats were minimal, the impact Little had was important. At the time he played, the Broncos needed to have someone that could sell tickets. If not, what damage to the whole enterprise of pro football would have been caused if Denver had lost its team.
Remember that in Little's rookie season the AFL's Chiefs had just gotten their butts handed to them by Green Bay in what would later be called Super Bowl I. Hardly anyone showed up to that first Super Bowl and very little TV interest as well. Even though the owners knew that the AFL was here to stay. The fanbase for pro football still thought of the AFL as the "other" league. Few fans considered the AFL as competitive as the NFL.
Now imagine what repercussions would have happened if any AFL team was perceived as weak financially. Would the owners have been forced to rethink the idea of a merger? Would it have delayed the merger? Yes it's a subtle impact to be sure. A what if scenario. But, just imagine what would have happened at that very special moment in time if Floyd Little hadn't been playing for the Broncos.
So, avoid the stats versus talent argument. Avoid the bad offensive line argument. And appreciate what impact that Floyd Little did have on the game that 30 years later there are fans in Denver that still remember him.
February 17th, 2010 at 1:38 am
I think everyone's overlooking one important thing: In the game All-Pro Football 2k8, Floyd Little is a "bronze tier player", and his peers at RB in that tier are Barry Foster, Christian Okoye, Dalton Hilliard, Eric Bienemy, Freeman McNeil, Greg Bell, Mike Rozier, Natrone Means, Reggie Cobb, Ronnie Bell, and Tony Nathan. Do those sound like Hall of Famers to you? And those are Little's peers!
For reference, the bronze tier QBs are Andre Ware, Bernie Kosar, Bill Wade, Bobby Hebert, Bubby Brister, Dave Krieg, Greg Landry, Jeff Hostetler, Jim harbaugh, Jim Hart, Jim Zorn, John Brodie, Ken O'Brien, Lynn Dickey, Mark Rypien, Neil O'Donnell, Steve Bartkowski, Steve Grogan, and Tommy Kramer. Congrats Hall of Fame, you've just inducted the equivalent of these players. Let the push for Neil O'Donnell's HOF candidacy begin!
February 19th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Honestly because of this, I now think Chuck Foreman should be in the HOF. He was great for about 5-6 yrs. I wouldnt have thought so, but now he deserves it. He was better than Little.
February 28th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Re: 54
I have that game and it is excellent. If any readers are wondering about "Ronnie Bell", Steven meant to write Ronnie Bull (Bears back in 1960s).
Re: 55
Foreman retired as the 17th all-time leading rusher.
His postseason honors-
1973 Sporting News NFC Rookie of the Year
1974 Sporting News NFC Player of the Year
1976 UPI NFC Player of the Year
1975-76 All-NFL
1973-77 Pro Bowl
He played only eight seasons, but the last two were injury-riddled duds. In his first six seasons he averaged about 106 scrimmage yards per game.
His top five games in total scrimmage yards-
265 in 1976 at Philadelphia- 28 carries for 200 yards, 6 catches for 65 yards, 2 TDs
203 in 1974 at Dallas- 23 rushes for 72 yards, 5 catches for 131 yards, 2 TDs
201 in 1975 vs Jets- 25 rushes for 96 yards, 9 catches for 105 yards, 3 TDs
201 in 1976 vs Giants- 23 carries for 83 yards, 8 catches for 118 yards, 1 TD
199 in 1976 vs Rams (playoff game)- 15 carries for 118 yards, 5 catches for 81 yards, 1 TD
Those Giants and Eagles cames were played in successive weeks.
A snowball in Buffalo in the 1975 season finale prevented Foreman from leading his conference in rushing and receptions and sharing the league record for touchdowns. In fewer than three quarters of action he ran 19 times for 85 yards and caught 10 passes for 87 yards. He scored four touchdowns.
Late in the 3rd quarter, Foreman was hit in the eye with a snowball by a Buffalo fan. He came out of the game for a few plays, but then came back in to catch a TD pass. That was his final play of the game. That touchdown gave Foreman 22 touchdowns on the season. It tied him with Gale Sayers (1965) and O.J. Simpson (1975). Simpson had scored his 22nd touchdown earlier in the game.
Foreman sat on the bench throughout the 4th quarter. Simpson scored his 23rd touchdown shortly after Foreman's 22nd. Thus, Foreman's share of the NFL touchdown record was extremely short-lived.
Foreman finished the season with 1070 rushing yards. Jim Otis won the NFC rushing title with 1076 yards.
I agree that Foreman was better than Little.